Georgia Straight
February 1, 2007
RAFFI GETS COOL
With the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently announcing that it is "very likely" (translation: 90 percent certain) that global warming has been caused by humans, the latest project by singer-songwriter Raffi is certainly a timely one. "Cool It—The Global Cooling Song" addresses the issue and calls on individuals, as well as political and business leaders, to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. The "Cool It" video, which can be viewed at www.RaffiNews.com , features guest vocals by the staff of the David Suzuki Foundation, including the man himself. Suzuki is using "Cool It" as the theme song of his current cross-Canada "If YOU Were Prime Minister…" tour, which stops in Vancouver on February 27.
"The 'Cool It' song had been on my mind for a while," Raffi told the Straight, "and then when I saw that he was doing this tour, and remembering that he was the first to call global warming a matter of survival—that was back in 1989—it kind of catalyzed me into writing the song." Unlike much of Raffi's past material, the rockabilly-flavoured "Cool It" is intended for an adult audience—the viewers of Al Gore's climate-change documentary An Inconvenient Truth, for instance. The song's video actually opens with a quote from Gore. "He has succeeded in creating a buzz right now," Raffi said of the former U.S. vice-president. "Global warming is the issue of our times. It's not going to go away. Are we going to be smart and proactive about it? That's the question."
John Lucas